BRIAN JONES

UI MULTIPLIER / ELEVATE CO-DIRECTOR

My journey starts in a small town called Hallsville in east Texas. As a child I was captivated by the trees that stood tall behind my house. I wanted to explore every inch, smell every scent, and lose myself in imagining that I was king of the pines.

Being king became a common theme in my life. In the 8th grade, after six years of shamefully hiding behind wide-frame glasses, I finally found my ticket to freedom: contact lenses. It only took one little taste and I was hooked. Attention was mine.

My dreams then started to take a shift from adventure to an explicit desire for fame, to be liked, and to be loved. Identity for the next half-decade was rooted in my own self-indulgence. It was so easy to reveal the best parts of me and sweep everything else under the rug. I was the guy that was good at football, had a hot girlfriend, and went to church. For a southern boy, I couldn’t have had a more flawless personality.

It wasn’t until I was nearly 19, with an aimless year of college under my belt that it all started to fall apart. The dreamer in me had completely disappeared, and the fame was fading fast. I had lost almost everything that solidified my identity up to that point and had never been more frustrated with God.

That same year on a summer night, in a dark Alabama field, I pleaded with God to make me the man that He wanted me to be. That night The King rescued me from destruction and whispered a future of adventure into my life.

I started to learn about a King much greater than myself, a King who humbled Himself as a servant to all. Finally, the words about Jesus that I had been hearing my whole life started to make sense. I wanted to be just like Him.

For the past five years, I’ve found myself in the most extraordinary places - from coast to coast, on top of mountain peaks, overseas, with friends that I thought I could never have, and joy that I had no idea I could feel - beckoned to all of this by the King that called me out of fear and into a dream.

In college at East Texas Baptist University, I majored in Mass Communication and minored in Religion. Never have I felt more anxious or excited than the day in my Missions class when my professor spent the entire period telling stories of missionaries who had given their lives for the kingdom’s sake. Shortly after that, I read a quote that said, “All around people are cautiously tiptoeing through life just to safely arrive at death. Dear children, never tiptoe. Run, hop, skip or dance, but never tiptoe.” That day I decided that I would go anywhere the King called me.

It only took one conversation and I was all in. Drew Worsham and Jane Imaizumi (now Worsham) met me outside of a grocery store in Texas, and at one point Drew said, “I have a stack of cards on my desk from guys who want to know more about Jesus.”

I now find myself 2,200 miles away from home, on campus at WSU. He has called me to collegiate ministry and into the lives of people with the same blind eyes that I once had.